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serev
04-11-2009, 02:43 AM
Recently, i finished rigging a vehicle and have been trying to automate as much of it as i can using motion paths, and so far have been successful. However, when I try to add a locator or some other node to the same motion path as the vehicle, so that it can drive the steering of the car when it approaches a turn, the locator travels from the same starting position as the car which doesn't work for what I need, and the options for motion paths doesn't seem to have a clear offset feature the same way constraints do. I've tried everything I can think of, including parent constraining a locator to the car then geometry constraining it to the curve--which works with mixed results. Anyone have any advice or perhaps a better way to go about what I'm trying to do?

Also, sorry if this is in the wrong place, wasn't sure where to post this...
ErikSvensson
04-12-2009, 01:35 PM
Hi there!

I done some of this at work and what I do is:

- One big group that follows the spline path.
- One group/locator that has its pivot in the middle of the car to handle "case"(?) animation (side to side but the wheels are still planted on the ground)
- 1 locator at the front for front steering
- 1 locator in the back for back wheel stearing or if you want the car to go up on the back wheels :))

The hiearchy:

Path group -> Case group/locator -> back locator -> front locator ->

Then skin front wheels to the front locator, back locator to the back wheels and case to the case group/locator. Or if you can just parent it. You might want to experiment around a bit about this but this works well for the simple things I do at least. :)

The good thing with this system is that you can key on top of the path without having to do blends and stuff, like if you want the car to slide in a turn you just key it on the front locator and vobble the case/body-controll according to the movement you want.

Erik
serev
04-12-2009, 10:02 PM
Thanks, that should help some. also made me realize i think i structured my hierarchy wrong...
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